Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Battery powered wireless nodes are commonly used in homes and businesses. They are used for many different applications including, but not limited to, environmental control, security, and fire alarm systems. Wireless nodes may be in the form of a smoke detector, a motion detector, a camera, or an alarm sensor, a temperature sensor, and comparable ones. Wireless nodes may employ a communication standard such as IEEE 802.15.4, IEEE802.11, or similar ones to communicate with a wireless node manager (e.g., an access point) or with each other.
The present disclosure appreciates that there are several limitations with known schemes to monitor wireless nodes. For example, the communication link between a wireless node and its access point may not be as reliable as in a wired network. One reason for wireless communication link failure may be low battery power, which may result in low transmission power. Another reason for wireless communication link failure is utilization of a low quality channel between the wireless node and the access point. A low quality channel may prevent transmissions from reaching the access point. The reduction in channel quality may be due to interference from other electronic devices, or a newly added physical structure shielding the access point from the wireless node.